


The Night of the Deadly Sun

by radondoran



Category: Wild Wild West (TV)
Genre: Gen, Heat Stroke, Hurt/Comfort, Outdated Medical Science, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 04:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15878664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radondoran/pseuds/radondoran
Summary: Artie is overcome by the heat in an isolated ghost town.  Then, to make matters worse, Dr. Loveless shows up.





	The Night of the Deadly Sun

James West was unsurprised to find the saloon empty. The vacant street, the cracked windows and the sepulchral silence of the town had led him to expect something of the kind. He called out, just to be sure, and got no response. "Well. Where do you suppose everybody went?"

No response to that either, which was surprising. Surely whoever was behind all this hadn't made off with his partner too, not already. West turned. "Artie?"

Artie had paused to take off his hat and now drew his sleeve across his brow, the other hand holding unsteadily to the doorframe. He looked up and slowly, blinkingly focused his gaze on West. "Mm-hmm."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm gonna sit down," Artie said. It wasn't an answer to the question; the tone was simply that of making some casual, irrelevant remark. He let go the doorframe and took two lurching steps towards the bar....

West's instinct when he moved in had been simply to catch Artie by the arm and steady him, guide him to a chair while he caught his breath. Instead he found himself sinking with the full weight of a body in a dead swoon. As he laid him out and loosened his collar Artie was still unresponsive, lifeless as a stone—but not stone cold, West realized the instant their skin touched. Not cold at all.

The saloon, and the town, were still a mystery, but the saddlebags were a known quantity. West was out the door and back in under a minute, pressing a bandana to the mouth of his open canteen and inverting it very briefly. He knelt and sponged Artie's face with the damp cloth. "Artie. Artemus. Come on, buddy, wake up."

As he finally began to stir West sat him up a little against the bar; the minute his eyes were open he uncapped the canteen again and poured a little water into his mouth.

Artie swallowed, coughed and peevishly turned his face away. "Hey. That's your canteen."

"You need it a little more than I do right now," said West, raising the water to his friend's lips again.

"Alright, alright—" Artie's hot and shaking hands were on his, pushing them down. "Alright, just—just gimme a minute to settle my stomach first, huh? Wouldn't wanna waste it."

West screwed the cap back on. "I told you to leave off the beaver hat," he said.

The slightest hint of an insult to his latest disguise was generally as good a reviver as sal volatile where Artie was concerned. Now, though, he scarcely puffed up at all. "Well the Baron was convinced, wasn't he?"

"Sure. And for an encore you've given a very convincing impersonation of a man fainting from sunstroke."

"Oh," Artie mumbled, and then "Oh."—the one a rueful acknowledgement, the other a desperate groan. He squeezed his eyes shut again and his whole frame was tense, like he was trying to hold himself very still while everything whirled about him. His breathing was hard and fast, and his voice came small and shallow. "Oh, boy, do I ever feel sick."

West touched his forehead with the cloth again. Artie took it, haltingly tried holding it against his neck, then grimaced and pressed it to his eyes. It couldn't be helping much. The water was warm. And out of the sun though they were the atmosphere was stifling.

Now West did stand up to have a look around, commencing his investigations behind the bar. The place was deserted, but maybe he could find a little brandy, or some more water—maybe even an icebox— _something_ — A floorboard clicked under his weight. The next moment the windows and door had vanished in a clang of steel shutters, and from a shadowy doorway in the back appeared the last person he wanted to see right now.

"Good afternoon, Mr. West," said Miguelito Loveless, with that gleeful grin he always wore when one of his traps was sprung. The revolver in his hand was already trained on West, and the colossal form of Voltaire loomed behind him as further inducement not to try anything—not that there was anywhere to go. "So glad you could make it."

From the other side of the bar West heard an abrupt gulping sound and a splash as that sip of water did go to waste after all.

Loveless looked annoyed at the interruption. "Really, Mr. Gordon. I should hardly think my presence is so repulsive as that."

"Quite... contrary.... Always... delightf—" The feeble rejoinder was cut short by another heave.

"He's ill," said West defensively, and with anger in his voice, because it wasn't just the blasted hat. If they hadn't been in such a hurry to follow up that last clue—if they had thought twice about riding so far in this hot spell—if they'd stopped for lunch—if he, West, had been paying more attention, if he'd done something sooner... And if they hadn't been so damn eager to walk straight into another trap.

Loveless approached with no sign of distaste or any other emotion. Leaning over the bar West could see him come straight up to Artie and touch his face, take his pulse, look into each of his eyes in turn. "Severe heat prostration," he said matter-of-factly. "You _have_ been careless." He looked at West again and gestured towards the back room with the revolver. "Come, Mr. West. Voltaire, bring Mr. Gordon."

West felt almost sick himself with helplessness. "You can't," he said. "He needs help. You can't..."

"My establishment is, as always, furnished with a world-class medical laboratory. Which I'm sure I needn't remind you is not merely the finest but the only such facility for a hundred miles."

"Then..." There was no choice. "Then I'll bring him."

"Very well. Voltaire, run ahead and tell Antoinette to get things ready. This way, Mr. West."

Artie had mercifully fallen back into the swoon. As West gathered him into his arms, Dr. Loveless put away his gun. There was now a far more compelling reason not to resist.

* * *

"Strip him," ordered Dr. Loveless as they entered the laboratory, where the cellar-like coolness made West glad for once to be brought to a secret underground lair.

"What?"

"Strip him, Mr. West, get his clothes off," Loveless repeated impatiently. "Or hand him to Voltaire and let him help."

"I—I got it." Right. West knew that. He hated it—hated having Artie exposed and vulnerable in the clutches of an arch-enemy—but he knew it, or should have known it. Of course that was the first thing to be done. Maybe the sun had cooked his brains too. More probably it was simple terror that clutched at his nerves. Willing himself to stay calm, he obeyed and carried the limp body to where Loveless had prepared a long shallow tub of—

"Ice water?" Already very reluctant to let go, West unconsciously held Artie tighter to him. "But the shock'll kill him."

"If I wanted to kill him, Mr. West," said Loveless with measured equanimity, "I needn't have brought him down here to do it. When you immerse him make sure to support his head so he doesn't drown."

The shock didn't kill him. He didn't drown. As the ice began to melt West was dimly aware of a flurry of activity in another part of the lab. The whole Loveless ménage was busy at it, Voltaire carrying things and Antoinette adjusting things and Loveless seeming to be everywhere at once, carrying out any number of abstruse operations. West didn't bother to look. His whole attention was fixed on Artie, his whole will on holding Artie's head—which was still far too hot when Loveless said, "Mr. West. Bring him here."

As he lay his burden down again West started at a sudden cool moisture on his neck and ears. They'd outfitted the hospital bed with some sort of apparatus that pumped in water and steadily rained down a tepid, fine mist. A cooling breeze stirred the air thanks to a contraption of broad, floral-painted silk fans rigged up to a spinning base. Not knowing what to do West found himself just crouching close at his friend's side—the bed, like most of the equipment, being adapted primarily for the use of Dr. Loveless.

Loveless, meanwhile, had rushed off, and in a few moments Antoinette arrived to take his place. West stared as the harpsichordist's delicate hands cinched a tourniquet around Artie's arm and laid it out palm up, like a surgeon about to let blood. Only it wasn't a lancet she had. She was going to inject morphine, or something. If seeing Antoinette doing something like this was strange, it was no less incongruous to hear her sweet voice call out, as Loveless approached: "Miguelito, I can't get a vein."

"Hold this."—and West automatically took the bottle of clear liquid and the length of tubing handed him. "No wonder," Loveless said as he joined Antoinette in searching the arm. "This degree of fluid loss..." But his smaller hands, or a more developed scientific perception, must have prevailed, because he said "Here," and the lady stuck in the needle with the sureness of a fine embroidery stitch through thick canvas.

It wasn't a lancet in her hand, but it wasn't a syringe either, it was—whatever it was, she just _left_ it there. West was acutely conscious of the blood rushing quicker through his own veins as he watched. "What's—what're you...?"

"Venous infusion of a slightly chilled salt solution," Loveless answered automatically as he reached for the equipment he'd handed off.

West, still holding the stuff, stood up in shock. "You're—you're gonna pump him full of salt water?"

Miguelito Loveless looked up at West with a fire hotter than sunstroke flashing out in his icy pale eyes. "I do not have time to cater to your barbaric ignorance, West!" It was the first time since their arrival that he had raised his voice. "I am the only one of the two of us who understands the first thing about what I am doing, and if you want to save your friend you will do as I say. Now hand over that bottle!"

* * *

The room in which West awakened had no apparent doors, and the light streaming in through the high barred windows did not appear to be from the sun; but the effect was nonetheless bright and airy. It was a comfortable little prison, as these things went. Or perhaps it was just that it felt like home because of the smell of coffee, and because...

"Artie," he said, sitting up from the cot.

"Mornin'. Breakfast? I dunno how it got in here, but it's good."

In amazement West took the other seat at a table which was adorned by, of all things, a little vase of flowers on a lace doily. There was a silver coffee pot, too, and a dish of fresh raspberries; and there was a generous spread of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes and buckwheat cakes, all hot. But the most welcome sight by far was Artie there across from him, eating with an appetite.

"You're all right," said West.

"Sure." And he did look all right; hell, he looked great. Not pale, not flushed; bright-eyed, clear-voiced, hungry. Fresh as a daisy. He was even in a clean shirt, West noticed, which, actually...

"Is that... my suit?"

"No, it's an exact replica," said Artie, reaching across the table to pour West a cup of coffee. At West's skeptical look he added, "Well your lavender suit has a mended seam at the, uh—remember? This one doesn't. I checked."

The explanation did not exactly clarify things.

"I expect it was the first thing they could find in—well, approximately my size. You know the good doctor's _penchant_ for doubles and those sorts of games. Probably got a whole closet full of your suits."

That, bizarre as it was, did make sense. "You do know where we are, then."

"I have a fair idea of it." Artie was quiet for a couple of bites, then pointed at West with his fork. "Listen, Jim. I'm a little misty on yesterday, and... Well, did, uh..." He laughed. "I, I know this sounds crazy, but did Dr. Loveless save my life?"

"Probably."

"Huh." He chewed on that, and on the buckwheat cakes, for several seconds. "I, uh, I didn't think he was even that kind of a doctor."

"I don't know _what_ he is." The words came out in a rush, the tone betraying more awe than West had intended or expected. "It's like he's on a whole different plane. He was—with you, he was doing things that—I never saw anything like it. I thought he must be mad."

"Well, Jim, he is mad," Artie reminded him.

"Right. But he did save you."

"Now what do you suppose he'd go and do a thing like that for?"

West shrugged. "A freak? A whim? Showing off? Who knows. Maybe he saw a fellow-creature suffering and felt a moral obligation to help. Or, on the other hand, maybe he just figured it wouldn't be much sport if he didn't destroy us himself."

"Hm." They were silent. West tried the potatoes. They were good. After a half-minute or so Artie said, "We're still gonna bust out of here and thwart his nefarious schemes and everything, though, right?"

"Of course. After all this hospitality I think it'd be very rude if we didn't."


End file.
